Milton-Freewater Humane Society, Inc.
DBA Cats Galore
ABOUT US.
Milton-Freewater Humane Society, Inc. has been active in the Walla
Walla Valley since 2002, primarily involved in promoting spay/neuter of
companion animals and leading the way in Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)
of feral and stray cats. We have also adopted out close to 200
cats and a few dogs 
per year since 2005. We were originally
PETS (Preventing Euthanasia Through Schooling), then Pets
of Milton-Freewater, Inc. and are now Milton-Freewater
Humane Society, Inc. since January, 2010. Cats Galore is our
shelter and sanctuary for feral cats.
We
are strongly No-Kill in philosophy and euthanize animals only when we
believe their quality of life is very poor and they cannot be
rehabilitated or their prognosis for recovery is very poor, based on
our veterinarian's opinion. We have always operated on a
volunteer basis and have no paid staff so all of our money goes directly to helping the animals.
Lola, adopted out on 4/15/10
PROGRAMS
SPAY/NEUTER.
Spay/neuter is what we work the hardest to promote as we believe
this will greatly reduce the number of homeless companion animals in
our community needing rescue or re-homing. We currently are working
with Pet Utopia and PAWS (formerly Pioneer Humane Society) on a
Umatilla county-wide spay/neuter project to spay/neuter over 4000 cats
in the next two years, starting in May, 2010. MFHS received the
first $25,000 grant from Handsel Foundation in June and we are busy
putting that grant money to work on feral cats and subsidizing
low-income cat spay/neuters. All three organizations are working
on fundraising and grant-writing to fund the remaining $175,000 we will
need to complete this ambitious project.
ADOPTIONS. We
operate a shelter/sanctuary for cats only to take in cats from our
Trap-Neuter-Return program when we feel it is best for the feral cat
colonies to be reduced in size immediately or the cats are in
danger. We adopt out tame adult cats and tame the feral kittens
so we can adopt them out.
Our partnership with Petco allows us to adopt out cats at adoption events every first Saturday and every third
Saturday and Sunday of the month, from 11 am to 4 pm, and often more weekends as well. We will also
adopt out our animals at other sites in 2010 and will place these
events on our webpage under "Events". Our cats are normally
adopted out spayed/neutered and fully vaccinated (rabies, RCP,
Felv). We do not test our cats for Felv/FIV unless we have reason
to suspect a possible problem. We do encourage our adoptors to have the
cats tested for FIV/Felv to ensure the safety of the other cats in their household.
We
do not currently have sufficient volunteers knowledgable about dog care and
training and generally cannot take in dogs at this time. If we do
find volunteers willing to be trained to handle a dog foster program,
we would like to do that in the future.
We
advertise our pets for adoption online through Petfinder.com,
Pets911.com, and Adopt-a-Pet.com. We also have our animals
photos on this website under "Animals".
Shelter Director, Lyla Lampson & Becky Lou, left, Petco's 2009 Santa and Starlight (center), and
Adoption Specialist Jean Petersen with Street Cat (right) at a Walla Walla Petco Adoption Event in December, 2010.
SHELTER/FERAL CAT SANCTUARY. We have a small shelter for adoptable cats that are held when we do not have room for them in foster homes. For
those cats that are healthy but are generally not adoptable or are hard
to adopt due to behavioral issues (such as being too wild or being
"sprayers") we maintain a feral cat sanctuary. These cats have access
to fenced outdoor yards and have indoor areas that are heated and
air-conditioned. We cannot take cats in
from the public as this facility is limited in capacity and is already
overfull. This facility is supported fully by donations and
volunteer labor.
Exterior of shelter/sanctuary show part of the outside yard.
One of two main cat rooms inside the shelter/sanctuary.
Volunteers Justin Chen and Jonathan Prest, students at Walla Walla
University, donated their skills this spring to build a cat-proof fence
to keep the feral cats in the yard. They also built secure
shelves for the cats to sleep on in the heated/air-conditioned shed
within the yard that keeps them safe from the elements.
Weston
residents, Lisa Pike (left), Allison Pike (left center), Ceana Pacheco
(right center), and Shayne Rudolph volunteer to clean the main cats
rooms at the shelter/sanctuary and help socialize the adoptable cats.
